Lincoln and Slavery
It is odd to use a writer in the New York Times to support a point about Abraham Lincoln, but there it is.
It has become trendy by some on the political extremes -- on both sides -- to assume that Lincoln was really a bigot, a power-seeker, and that he didn't care about slavery. These folks grab onto a couple of famous statements of Lincolns, like this one:[M]y paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.
Well, it's obvious. He didn't care as much about freeing the slaves as preserving the Union, right?
Ah, but this was written to a member of the media -- Horace Greeley, in fact. Greeley had just published an attack on Lincoln in the form of a long letter of complaint addressed to Lincoln in Greeley's New York Tribune. Lincoln's response, from which the above is an excerpt, was posted in the Washington Star. And right after this statement, intended to calm a nation that was suffering from the Civil War, Lincoln proceeded with the Emancipation Proclamation.
Before the war, and even before he took office, Lincoln sabotaged a deal that would have prevented the Civil War and kept the Union together -- but would have allowed slavery to continue. That, to him, was intolerable -- and it was his background work that demonstrated how important it was to him to end slavery forever.
The New York Times piece by Richard Striner lays this out.
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It has become trendy by some on the political extremes -- on both sides -- to assume that Lincoln was really a bigot, a power-seeker, and that he didn't care about slavery. These folks grab onto a couple of famous statements of Lincolns, like this one:[M]y paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.
Well, it's obvious. He didn't care as much about freeing the slaves as preserving the Union, right?
Ah, but this was written to a member of the media -- Horace Greeley, in fact. Greeley had just published an attack on Lincoln in the form of a long letter of complaint addressed to Lincoln in Greeley's New York Tribune. Lincoln's response, from which the above is an excerpt, was posted in the Washington Star. And right after this statement, intended to calm a nation that was suffering from the Civil War, Lincoln proceeded with the Emancipation Proclamation.
Before the war, and even before he took office, Lincoln sabotaged a deal that would have prevented the Civil War and kept the Union together -- but would have allowed slavery to continue. That, to him, was intolerable -- and it was his background work that demonstrated how important it was to him to end slavery forever.
The New York Times piece by Richard Striner lays this out.
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